Loreto has always been on the list of close-to-home destinations I’ve wanted to fish. The main reason: I had always heard that Loreto has a great yellowtail fishery. More specifically, a great winter yellowtail fishery that comes into its own when there’s not a yellowtail to be found anywhere in the Southern California Bight come this time of year.

After visiting Loreto with John Mestrin, who books trips to Loreto — and throughout Mexico — with his travel agency, Blue Water Tours (www.bluewatertours.com) I can say, firsthand, that Loreto’s yellowtail fishery is all it’s cracked up to be.

Arturo Susarrey, owner of Arturo’s Sportfishing Fleet, and one of his skippers Antonio Gomez, showed Mestrin and I great yellowtail fishing on 28- to 32-pound yellowtail at Isla Ildefonso. We set up camp on the little protected beach that Mestrin and Susarrey have used to set up Campo San Nicolas, which has been touted as the “ultimate” experience for those looking for Baja yellowtail and cabrilla in February and March, in years past. While the trips are not on offer this year — did you hear we are in a gnarly recession? — trips are set for 2011. The location of the camp is super remote and one-of-a kind for a fly-to destination.

There’s also a lot more to Loreto than fishing yellows in the winter/spring and dorado in the summer. Everyone is always looking for the “real Baja” — whatever that is. I don’t know what the “real Baja” is, but I do know Loreto has charm. Thanks to cobblestone streets, the first mission to be built in the California, and great hotels, restaurants, etc. There’s a new hotel called La Mision (lamisionloreto.com) that is on the more luxury side of things. (Read: the type of place where you can go on a fishing trip with your wife and she’ll be happy to sit by the pool, read a book and maybe hooking into a margarita sometime around Chapter 6.) We stayed there two nights and I was incredibly impressed with Loreto’s newest, arguably most modern, hotel.

I could go on and on about Loreto — mainly the yellowtail fishing on the yo-yo iron and La Mision — but I’ll save the fishing talk for a future column and feature in WON. In the meantime, he’s a little photo Blog to wet the appetite.